Fires were probably unknown, except in the Hall, whither inmates of the College doubtless resorted to warm themselves at all hours of the day. It is to be hoped that, at such casual gatherings, they were relieved from the obligation to converse in Latin imposed upon them during the regular meals in Hall. But intimacy between juniors and seniors was strictly prohibited; and though Archbishop Cranmer allowed the College to dispense with the practice of Bachelors “capping” Masters in the Quadrangle, it was thought necessary to revive it. As for manly pastimes, which occupy so large a space in modern University life, they are scarcely to be traced in the domestic history of Merton, though a ball-court is known to have existed at the west-end of the Chapel. Football, cudgel-play, and other rough games, were certainly played by the citizens in the open fields on the north of Oxford; but if Merton men took part in them, it was against the spirit of Merton rules, since these playful encounters were a fertile source of town and gown rows. There seem to have been no academical sports whatever; rowing was never practised, cricket was not invented, archery was cultivated rather as a piece of warlike training; and it is to be feared that poaching in the great woods then skirting Oxford on the north-east was among the more favourite amusements of athletic students. It must not be forgotten, however, that, by the original foundation, all the members of the College were both Scholars and Fellows, of equal dignity, except in standing, the Scholar being nothing but a junior Fellow, and the Fellow nothing but an elder Scholar. There were a few boys of the Founder’s kin, for whom a separate provision was made; and “commoners” were admitted from time to time at the discretion of the College, but these were mere supernumeraries, at first of low degree, afterwards of higher rank, and on the footing of fellow-commoners. It was not until the new order of Postmasters (_portionistae_) was founded by Wylliott, about 1380, that a second class of students was recognized by the College; and this institution of College “scholarships,” in the modern sense, long remained a characteristic feature of Merton. Unlike the young “Scholares,” the Postmasters did not rise by seniority to what are now called Fellowships, and were, in fact, the humble friends of the Master-Fellows who had nominated them. It would appear that at the end of the fifteenth century, if not from the first, each Master-Fellow had this right; and the number of Postmasters was always to be the same as that of the Master-Fellows. Until that period they seem to have been lodged in the separate building, opposite the College gate, long known as “Postmasters’ Hall.” It is not clear whether they took meals in the College Hall, or lived on rations served out to them; but it is perfectly clear that they fared badly enough until their diet was improved in the reign of James I. by special benefactions of